


In Death's Dream Kingdom

by lady_mab



Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Spoilers, the hollow boy spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 11:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4833506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_mab/pseuds/lady_mab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hollow boy meets the fetch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Death's Dream Kingdom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [35portlandrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/35portlandrow/gifts).



Lockwood turned back to Lucy, and he could feel his feet give on the ground. Just a bit, but enough to let him know that the wind was getting worse. “Just you, Luce,” he shouted, and held out his hand.

Across from him, Lucy reached -- and beneath them, the floorboards burst upward.

She was blown back, thankfully, to solid ground. He watched her land hard on her back (the backpack, the jar, was it cracked? was she alright?), saw her mouth open in a cry of pain, but the sound was lost in the roar of wind.

“Lucy!” He scrambled over the broken boards, buffeted to and fro by the winds. He slid down one side, and barely caught himself before he plummeted into the gaping hole in the floor.

He saw her struggle to sit up. “I’m okay,” she called back. She made her way to her feet, and took a confident step forward.

Lockwood would have sighed in relief if the breath wasn’t snatched right from his lungs. He started to heave himself back, away from the edge of the pit, when he heard Lucy call his name.

“Watch out!”

He turned, and a force hit him square in the chest.

His arms pinwheeled in a desperate attempt to catch his balance. Sounds swarmed his senses -- his teammates across the room shouting, the wind roaring, the rush of blood in his ears -- and then everything went silent as equilibrium tipped him backward.

The only thing he heard was Lucy’s scream.

* * *

Breathing was difficult. Seeing was impossible.

At least he could feel. If the explosion of pain that told him his body stretched endlessly in the black abyss was anything to go by, then he was alive.

Inexplicably, the first thing out of his mouth was a faint, wheezing, “Lucy?” 

No answer came, but he didn’t expect one to.

It took time -- a lot of time, or maybe none at all, he couldn’t tell, he hurt all over and he couldn’t see his watch (was it broken? he thought it might be broken, but then he thought that he quite fancied a trip to a tropical island where it was warm and sunny and the night never came and he would never have to hold a rapier again, and then he thought that _he_ might be broken and the watch working just fine but who would ever know if he couldn’t lift his free hand to test that theory?).

Eventually, a short aeon later, he made his way to his feet, learned that indeed his watch was broken and he was not, and then promptly returned to Agent Mode.

Belt? Check. Pouches -- salt, iron, flares, matches, candles? Low on supplies, but check.

Rapier? No good. Well, better that he lost it than impaled himself on it on his way down.

Lockwood shoved his emotions away into a little box, locked it and labled it ( _for later, or never at all_ ), and reached for the first of his candle stubs.

Or, well, the only candle stub. The other was gone.

With a skill born of years of practice, he drew out the stub and lit the match without hesitation. A nebula of warmth flared to life around him, and he finally allowed himself the time to sigh.

“Nothing for it but to start walking,” he said to the silence, though it took another few moments before he could force his feet to obey the command.

On he went, with only a tiny candle to guide him. He was exhausted (a lifetime rested heavy on his shoulders and he wanted to shrug it off), hungry (they never had their pre-mission tea and biscuits, did they? ah, packet he kept in his pocket was empty, must have fallen out), worried (terrified -- Lucy, was Lucy okay? Were the others okay?)

( _Why did she scream like that? Please be safe Lucy, please be safe. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you because I couldn’t save you._ )

The first sign that something was amiss was that the candle in his hand was growing warmer but the light in the hallway was never changing. Warmer candle meant that it burned closer to his hand, running out of wick and wax and soon he’d be left with matches. Light in the hallway not changing meant there was an outside source of light, why did it take him so long to realize how cold it was?

Something brushed his cheek, and he jumped despite himself. Whirling around, ignoring the splash of wax on his hand, he only found a tatter of spider web turning to smoke beneath his candle.

He breathed, and it turned into a plume of white before his face. He filled his lungs with the crisp, freezing air and winced against the pain (ribs bruised, tucked away for later -- alongside the knowledge that his ankle creaked uncomfortable and ached in a way that it shouldn’t, with his shoulder releasing a sharp pain each time his left arm moved from its useless spot at his side, with the smear of blood across the side of his hand that appeared after he wiped his forehead, _that isn’t sweat is it, ah, ignore it for now_ ).

The candle in his hand gutted and snuffed out in a biting wind that swirled around the space.

This time, Lockwood allowed himself a colorful swear as the wax splattered, and he dropped the remains of the candle.

“ _Lockwood?_ ”

He jerked back a step as he whirled around. He crushed the wax beneath his boot heel and his foot slid out from under him, twisted his already injured ankle, and only caught himself from falling by snagging his good arm against a pile of pale white--

 _Bones_.

Ah, something tangible. This had to be the source. The sound of his name was pushed from his mind and he reached for the pockets at his belt. A flare or two would do him some good -- keep the spirits at bay if not contained, give him the satisfaction of destroying something in a fit of pent up frustration.

His fingers fumbled with the first flare, and fumbled and fumbled and oh, there was more blood than there was a moment before.

“ _Lockwood? Is that you?_ ”

He recognized the voice now, and this time, all thought of the bones scattered to the absent four winds. “Lucy?” He squinted in the direction that the other light was coming from. It all made sense now. Of course. She was approaching with a torch or a lantern or some other form of light. That’s why. “And here I was hoping I could still make it back up to the lobby to save you in time.”

When no laughter came, he levered himself to his feet and took a step in the direction of the light. “Luce, c’mon, I’m right around the corner.”

The light flickered, and a soft sigh escaped her. He could just imagine the expression on her face -- he had to, because when he approached, she kept her head lowered and her hand on one wall as if to steady herself.

Despite the light -- because of it? -- he couldn’t see her details well enough. He also couldn’t quite see the source of the light. Did she leave the lantern behind? Didn’t want to ruin his Sight, if he had been using it, perhaps.

Instead, the only thing she said was a choked, “ _I’m so sorry._ ”

“No--” Lockwood started, and when he took a step toward her, a flicker or something he couldn’t identify wracked her entire body and she retreated in time. “Lucy, what’s wrong? I was kidding, you know. I don’t mind that you came to save me.”

“ _I couldn’t_ ,” she said, and when she looked up, he knew that something was wrong. “ _I couldn’t reach you in time, Lockwood._ ”

He breathed in and out, tried to keep a level head. Tried to figure out what was wrong. “Of course you couldn’t. There was a giant pit between us. The poltergeist was going to blow us all the way to Oz at that rate--”

Again, there was no laughter. Only the crack of an indistinct sad smile that made his heart stop. “ _We tried, you know? We all did. I’m sorry I wasn’t prepared for--_ ”

“Lucy, don’t--” He lunged across the distance between them, ignoring the wave of pain, but before he could reach for her, the light flared to life around her and she jerked away with a strangled, “ _No!_ ”

His fingers passed a hair’s breadth from her arm, and not a moment too soon. He realized, stomach sinking into his stomach, past the stone floor beneath his feet, all the way down down down _down_.

“Luce… Lucy Carlyle, what happened to you?”

“ _I didn’t want you to see me like this,_ ” she said, which wasn’t an answer. Her voice cracked, broke in time with what remained of his heart. “ _I just wanted to make sure you made it safely--_ ”

“Lucy, what _happened_?” He struggled against the crippling weight that won out in the end. His knees buckled, and he collapsed before her image, finally seeing the way that her legs lost focus, that it wasn’t just his vision cutting out -- it was real, it was the truth, she--

“ _The jar. It cracked when I was thrown back._ ”

No. No no no no no--

“ _Not really the right time to tell you that you were right, huh? All along._ ”

When he forced himself to look, her hand strayed to her neck, and he noticed the dark rings burned into her ghostly flesh. Coarse, like a rope, or maybe like fingers, strangling the breath out of her as she grabbed at the spirit and _burned burned burned_. Ghost touch.

Like Jessica.

Again. Again again againagainagainstop make it stop _makeitstop_

“ _The others are okay. Safe behind the iron. I made sure of it._ ”

“I don’t care, Lucy. None of it matters if you’re not-- If you’re--” His voice faltered, failed him, broke into a hundred little pieces and all those pieces sobbed in time. “I failed you.”

“ _No, shh, Anthony, no._ ”

He hated the way his entire body ached at the sound of his name, said too late. He wanted to reach for her, wanted her to gather him in her arms and tell him that it was okay, she was okay, we will be okay.

“There was nothing you could do.”

Lockwood swore and beat the ground with his fist. “Don’t say that, Lucy. I could have. I _should_ have been there. I shouldn’t have let you go on your own--”

“ _I wasn’t alone. I had Holly. And she’s safe, thanks to you. So is Vernon. Everyone is safe because you were there._ ”

“But you’re not.”

Silence, and for a moment, with his eyes squeezed shut tight to try and stop the tears and to ignore what he didn’t want to see, he thought that she simply left. Or that she wasn’t there in the first place.

Instead, her voice soft and regretful, she repeated, “ _There was nothing you could do._ ”

That was a lie. There was plenty. He could have told her to stop talking to the skull. He could have had it destroyed, damn George’s experiments. He could have been the one with her. But they had let the distance and the arguments create a canyon between them. _He_ let it happen.

It took more strength than he thought he could muster to lift his head and look her in the eyes. She didn’t flinch or pull away, though the flickered in a way that didn’t make her look real.

“Lucy… Lucy, do you forgive me?” If this was the last time he would see her, he needed to know. He had to know that she didn’t die with the knowledge that he had failed her. Because he had, though he knew that she would deny it til her last breath.

When she smiled, he felt his heart break all over again. He wouldn’t get to see that smile anymore -- wouldn’t get to hear her fondly call him an idiot.

“Of course I do, you idiot.” The voice didn’t echo like it had previously, and something moved behind her that he couldn’t make out.

For a split second, everything stopped. The Lucy before him was looking down, and when he followed her line vision, there was the silver tip of a sword protruding through her chest. And then, one fancy flick of the wrist later, another Lucy stood a step behind the first with a tired, frustrated expression on her face.

Two things happened at once.

The first was the overwhelming relief that _she was alive_. The second was, “You heard.”

“Only the end of the conversation, but enough to get an idea.”

“It was--”

“A Fetch, is my guess.”

“You’re alive.”

“I’m alive.”

He didn’t believe it. He didn’t want to get so wrapped up in an untruth this time. So he surged back to his feet and, not even paying attention to the rapier she gripped in one hand (it was his rapier, where had she found that?), stumbled the distance between them.

There was a clank of metal as Lucy dropped the sword and their arms twined around each other at the same time. She smelled like sweat and dust and there were cobwebs in her hair and she gripped the back of his jacket to keep him steady as he nearly swooned.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” she whispered against the side of his head.

“You’re here, and that’s all that matters.” Lockwood breathed her in, again and again until the world remained steady under his feet. “The poltergeist?”

“Gone. Got me once real good before it blew out. Knocked me unconscious for about half an hour before the others could wake me up.” She laughed, and he missed that sound so much. “C’mon. Let’s get you back up there. The others are worried sick.”

She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip. “Five more minutes,” he muttered into her shoulder.

“This isn’t the time for you to be sleeping in.” But still, she stayed. And she stayed steady until his trembling finally stopped, and his shoulders no longer heaved with silent sobs, and she was so perfectly warm and alive.

 


End file.
